In a downtown Claremont hair salon, Shelby Soulia sat patiently in a chair while Meghan Brown delicately affixed false eyelashes to Soulia’s eyelids. Soulia has gotten used to wearing them for special occasions, even though, she said, they are like having “caterpillars on your face.”

Brown, the owner of Makeover by Meg, which is tucked behind the Opera House, styled Soulia’s long, ash blond hair in soft waves and then applied makeup, putting on a pink lip gloss and dusting on a light layer of powder. It’s Soulia’s third time there. When Brown is finished, Soulia scrutinizes herself in the mirror. “It looks so good, it’s so simple, it’s subtle,” Soulia said.

This is Soulia’s first stop. She reaches the next by leaving the salon, walking down the hallway and then climbing a steep set of stairs that bring her into the Opera House. From there she walks outside and down the street to Les Bella Boudoir, a business dedicated to boudoir photography that has been open since 2021 in a streetfront space on Opera House Square.

The front windows are frosted and tinted so that passers-by can’t peer inside.

The client, usually female, poses in an array of costumes — lingerie, silk robes, black leather — in an array of sets — chairs, bathtubs, beds — with an array of props — use your imagination.

The two women who run the business, Jess Kinson, the owner and photographer, and Sarah McEnany, an associate photographer, are both in their 30s. Kinson choreographs Soulia’s poses while McEnanay takes pictures of Soulia from different angles, using a Canon R6 camera.

Soulia cheerfully contorts her body into pretzel-like shapes, throws her hair back and waggles her legs this way and that. She is firm on what she likes and what she doesn’t, what she’ll do and what she won’t.

The light through the back windows on a gloomy winter day is soft and dim. The natural and artificial lighting, and the way Kinson and McEnany deploy them, pick out the curve of a shoulder or neck, an arch of the back, and the eyes and lips.

After an hour of posing and occasional laughter, Soulia, 29, puts her street clothes back on. She and McEnany do a first edit, pruning the initial crop of 222 photos down to 48, and then the final edit of 20. She is going to share the photos with her husband, Soulia said.

A Les Bella package, which includes hair and makeup by Brown, sets, clothing and props, starts at $600. Images are purchased separately. A package that includes photography starts at $2,500. Clients must be 18 or older.

Soulia, who lives in Andover, Vt., has done two prior sessions at Les Bella. It took a while to get up the “confidence and courage” to come to terms with physically (and mentally) revealing herself.

“People are very hypercritical,” she said. “But it’s really showing that everybody is different and beautiful in their own way. You’re not letting society write your narrative; you write your own. It’s going against the grain a little bit. You can feel empowered and beautiful and confident. I can feel good in that moment. It’s art. It’s more than just photos.”

Brown, who has had her own photos taken, said when she saw them, she was amazed: “I saw my photo and I was like, OK. OK.”

Kinson, who lives in Claremont, started out photographing weddings and high school graduates. But she became more interested in boudoir photography because she saw how women could be transformed by the process.

“There’s such a stigma of what women are supposed to look like,” she said. “Seeing how they felt made me feel better. … The whole point is to show that your body is good.”

Indeed, the vibe is not “creepy or pervy,” Kinson said. It’s rather wholesome: a combination of gym workout (point those toes, stretch your hamstrings!), Barbie movie-style girl power and the look of a mildly risqué pin-up calendar that does not exceed anything seen in films or TV. Signs on the wall set the tone: “The Future is Female,” “Break the Rules,” and, attributed to Coco Chanel, “Don’t be like the rest of them, darling.”

Soulia, Kinson and McEnany joke around throughout the hour-long photo shoot.

“We’re not afraid to be silly,” Kinson said, who encourages Soulia with the occasional cheer of “Gaw-geous!” as well as exhortations to lift, drop or clutch her buttocks.

A first-time client typically comes in “stiff and uncomfortable,” said Kinson. She and McEnany walk a first-timer through the process to make them feel more at ease.

Given the volatile nature of social media and potential for misuse, the Les Bella Facebook group of women (around 4,500, according to Kinson) who share their boudoir photos is private. Clients must sign contracts before being admitted to the group. It is women only, and you must be over 18. Screenshots are not permitted. Members can be kicked out for violation of the rules or for general rudeness. They have not had problems, said McEnany.

Kinson no longer posts on Instagram but does use TikTok to advertise. Without it, she said, she doubts they would have attracted customers from outside New Hampshire and Vermont. There are dozens of photographers and photography studios in New Hampshire and Vermont offering a boudoir option, and the business of boudoir seems to have increased in the past three years, Kinson wrote in an email.

Both Kinson and McEnany know that some people will not approve of what they do. But they view themselves as preaching self-acceptance in a world that judges women harshly on their appearance.

For that reason, Kinson added that she has thought about dropping the word “boudoir” in favor of calling what they do “empowerment or reinvigoration sessions.”

“If we focused on what others may think of the type of photography we do, we wouldn’t be able to provide such a raw, unapologetic experience for women. Women need to be encouraged to embrace their bodies and sexuality and not have it be about men or the ‘male gaze,’ ” McEnany wrote in an email.

Kinson echoed McEnany, writing in an email that women don’t need to dye their hair, lose weight or have plastic surgery to consider themselves desirable: “What we do is show women that despite maybe not feeling ‘perfect,’ they are still damn beautiful!”

More often than not, Kinson said, when women see the final results, they are “floored” and sometimes become emotional.

“You come in one person and go out a different person,” Kinson said.

Nicola Smith can be reached at mail@nicolasmith.org.